The Last Rewind

Stageplay

THE LAST REWIND The old man went under the mound. Where he reclined, and his mind drifted to a time his life had shined. Two chairs sitting in the middle of the stage, facing a TV pointed at the back of the stage. Music blares from the TV at a deafening volume. The dim glow illuminates the black stage. A silhouette much like light bouncing off the bars of a prison cell is projected on the back wall. A figure emerges from the shadows, carrying a weapon of sorts. They walk up to the television set and immediately starts to swing the weapon at the set. The sound of glass shattering. The music becomes more distorted but continues on. After four swings, the character places the bat down, picks up the TV and throws it against the ground. They walk off stage left in silence. From stage right, an arm reaches around the door, attempting to flick the light switch. After a few attempts, the lights switch on. A blinding white light hits the stage. Glass shimmering off the carpeted floor. A huge painting hangs off the back wall. A banjo is leaned against the back wall. The two chairs are highlighted with spotlights that hang from a beam in the ceiling. Off to stage right is a table covered in notebooks and sheets of paper. Evading the glass shards on the floor, Trey sits down in one of the chairs, and picks up the TV remote. He points it at where the TV used to exist, to no avail. TREY Hmm. Mike walks on from stage right, and sits in the other chair. The two stare catatonically at the empty void. MIKE TV isn’t working? TREY Yeah, it’s a bugger really. MIKE So.

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2.

TREY Yeah. MIKE What’s up? TREY I’m gonna go write something. Be back when my masterpiece’s piece is done. MIKE ...fine. Silence. Neither of them move from their seat. MIKE So. TREY Yeah. MIKE What’s up? TREY I’m gonna go write something. Be back when my masterpiece’s piece is done. MIKE ...fine. More silence. Neither move. MIKE We don’t talk about much, do we? TREY Yeah. MIKE Ever think about why? TREY I’m thinking about buying a new TV. MIKE I’m gonna go and see what’s for dinner. TREY What channel do you want it on?

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3.

MIKE I’m having fish. Silence. Neither move. TREY I’m bored. MIKE You ever wonder why we’re stuck in this place? TREY What place? MIKE These four walls. They’re so confining. TREY Leave then. Silence. Neither move. Fade out. MIKE Wait a minute. Lights quickly come back up. Both are still entrenched in their chairs. MIKE That silence was WAY too long. TREY What? MIKE The silence was too long. If you’re going to write a silence into the proverbial script of life, it has to be shorter. Or otherwise the observers get bored. Trey How long are you talking? MIKE The usual pause. TREY (Immediately.) Like this? MIKE No, no, a little longer. (Long silence. )

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4.

MIKE What the hell are you writing, anyway, The Great Pause? TREY No, The Great Silence. The Great Pause is a somewhat shorter work, written in 1435 by Alchard. MIKE Sure it is. So what exactly is the point is remained trapped inside this so called prison then? TREY It’s a social commentary. Basically I write my masterpiece about feeling entrapped and cut off from society. Then I live out my own private hell by living in an enclosed flat with an idiot for four months, you know, like Bowie did with the cocaine. MIKE Then I kill the bastard, write a huge letter to the media justifying this horrific atrocity, the main reason being nobody sane could live in a room for four months with someone who has the intelligence that can only be accurately compared by giving someone four lobotomies, and then everybody goes home happy. TREY Wait. I end up dying at the end? MIKE Well. I haven’t left the room in a month, and you’re in it with me. TREY So I’m not going home happy. MIKE That implies that you’re a functioning part of society. Silence. MIKE I despise your absolute fibre of being, you know that? TREY Yep. Want a Coke? MIKE (Sarcastically.) Yeah. Diet, please, and if you can, hang yourself while you’re in the kitchen?

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5.

TREY Alright. Trey pulls himself out of the chair, and walks offstage. MIKE Finally, a little bit of peace and quiet. Mike pulls himself out of the chair, and sits at the desk upstage right, and opens his laptop computer. He taps the mouse a few times, and ambient, bass heavy, droning music begins to play through the speakers. Trey comes back on stage, carrying a TV with two Diet Coke cans balanced precariously on top. He places it in the position where the old TV’s wreckage lies, then turns his chair to face it. The ambient music suddenly cuts short, much like a tape being eaten by the machine. A sits back down in his chair, still facing the old spot where the TV was. The two sit in silence. After a few moments, the two get up and face each other. Mike then turns stage left and walks around the chairs. Trey sits in the chair that Mike left, and Mike sits in Trey’s chair. TREY So. MIKE Yeah. TREY What’s up? MIKE I’m gonna go write something. Be back when my masterpiece’s piece is done. TREY ...fine. Wait, your masterpiece? It’s mine! MIKE I KNEW that would work. TREY What would? MIKE The changing of our positioning would change our conversational patterns. If we change seats again, I bet it will be back to how it was before.

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6.

TREY So if we moved chairs, the sequence would be rehearsed. MIKE Reversed, you mean. TREY Yeah, rehearsed. MIKE I suppose so. The two pick up their chairs and change positions with one another. MIKE So. TREY Yeah. MIKE What’s up? TREY I’m gonna go write something. Be back when my masterpiece’s piece is done. MIKE ...fine. Silence. Neither of them move. TREY We’re all ghosts in the machine, you know. MIKE What? TREY We’re all ghosts in the machine. To be destroyed whenever the music industry realises that their is a bug inside their money making mainframe. MIKE So basically you’re doomed because you can’t make any money with this so called "meaningful art"? TREY Pretty much, I’ll never be appreciated, and I’ll end up dead before my work becomes even slightly notable. It’s the fate of all fine artists. Van Gogh had to lose an ear, no? To succeed in any semblence of society you (MORE) (CONTINUED)

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7.

TREY (cont’d) seemingly need to be devoid of any sort of humanlike emotion. It seems that you need to lack any sort of ability to communicate with emotion. MIKE I’m not showing enough hatred then. Silence. Both are sitting in the chairs, watching the space where the TV used to exist. Catatonic staring. Neither of them move for what seems like hours. TREY So this masterpiece...I’m thinking that it’s going to be big. MIKE Almost as big as my temptation to leave you in a pool of your own bodily fluids. Preferably in a way that means I don’t have to touch you. Silence. TREY Humans are a part of god’s strange design. (Beat.) That’s BRILLIANT! MIKE What are you on about now? TREY Well, you know how we’re trying to figure out what our purpose in life is? MIKE Yes, Sigmund. TREY Well, I can finally put myself with the great philosophers. I figured out that we’re all just pawns on God’s chessboard. Freud was a psychologist. All waiting for a bigger, more significant cog in the machine to kill us and erase us from history. MIKE So if you were a chess piece, what one would you be? TREY Well, I’m a pawn in the music industry, aren’t I?

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8.

MIKE I suppose. That’s a really fatalistic view on life, isn’t it? TREY Name one fish that hasn’t died. MIKE You, although if you keep going on pseudo-intellectual ramblings, the down to zero. (Somewhat sarcastically, of truth to it. ) And we don’t want that, do we? I’m okay?

with your number might come but with a hint gonna go run a bath,

MIKE Yeah, I’ll just go and get the mail. Psychiatrist. TREY What? MIKE Nothing. Mike walks off stage right. Trey looks shiftily, then runs off stage left. A large amount of banging happens backstage. The sound of running water. Trey then struggles back on stage, carrying a bathtub. He sets it up upstage left and ties himself to the bath. Mike walks in and calmly sits down. MIKE I thought you were running a bath. TREY The bastard isn’t pulling his weight. MIKE Keep trying and he won’t be the only dead weight. Silence. As if synchronised, both get up, and walk in opposite directions, off stage. They reappear on the opposite side of the stage from where they walked off, ending up face to face with each other. An awkward meeting of eyes occur. Both then walk to the chairs and sit in them as if nothing happened. MIKE So what exactly is this majestic piece of art called?

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9.

TREY "The Squirming Coil." MIKE Why? Is it a reflection on how whenever I stab you in the leg with an axe, you have to lie on the floor and will squirm away before I discharge you from this mortal coil? TREY Nah. MIKE Oh, alright. What’s it about? TREY The pressures of "the machine" on ordinary life. MIKE I can see how dying can impact on life. (Silence. ) You were talking about the machine designed to kill you, yes? TREY No, I was talking about the music machine. MIKE Sure. The only music machine you’re even SLIGHTLY involved in is some parallel universe where pop tarts sing Jewish folk songs called Punch You In The Eye to an adoring crowd of 15 year olds with piercings all down the right side of their body and their left side painted green. Do you really want me to show you the futility of the music industry? It’s one that destroys people. It makes them into comatose, lifeless, empty spectres. I should know, it happened to me. I was once one of the finest singers in the western states of the USA. Of course, I wasn’t terribly successful considering bluegrass is most popular in the south. But do you want me to show you how extremely artistic my banjo playing was? TREY Sure. Go right ahead. Be my guest, I’m sure to enjoy it. MIKE Okay then. I will. Silence. Trey gets up and begins to walk to his desk, which is located upstage right.

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10.

TREY It happened at a festival in 97. MIKE I hope you die a bloody and painful death. TREY Wanna have icecream? MIKE Later, I’ve already had some cigarettes. How are you going to end your little psuedo saga? TREY I dunno. What do you think about a long fade out? Lights begin to fade out. I think that having the dramatic fade would be great after the climatic point. MIKE No, that’s silly. And stop screwing with the lamp. TREY Sorry. Lights jump back up. How about a cold end? Lights go out. MIKE No. Gets up, flicks the light switch, the lights come back on. Is it just me or are all of your suggestions actually happening as you say them? TREY Seems so. I WANT FOUR SAMURAI TO COME OUT AND MAKE ME A PIZZA. Silence. I was so hoping that was going to work too. MIKE It was as likely as you having any success in life. TREY I made a sandwich the other day.

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11.

MIKE (in mock awe) Brilliant. Really brilliant. TREY I also ate it. (Beat.) You ever think life is boring? MIKE Well, yeah, we’ve been locked in a watching TV for three months. Even we STILL ended up watching TV like course we’re going to get slightly

room catatonically after it got smashed comatose monkeys. Of bored.

TREY I wonder what would happen if someone were to walk in this room and observe it. MIKE They’d probably get extremely bored after five minutes if it wasn’t for the new TV you got. Where did you get that from, anyway? TREY Um, fish markets. MIKE No, the TV, not the sandwich. TREY Oh, um. I have contacts. I have funding for my little project. MIKE Who would pay you to lock yourself in a room for four months with some unsuspecting victim just to write about such cliched topics as isolation? TREY Sadists. MIKE Ah. Silence. TREY I’m still bored. MIKE You ever wonder why we’re stuck in this place?

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12.

TREY What place? MIKE These four walls. They’re so confining. TREY Leave then. MIKE Why? You’re the one whinging about being bored, you leave. TREY I’m allowed to, I’m an artist. Silence. MIKE You ever get the feeling this has been done before? The two guys in some easily escapable situation moaning about the state of human society archetype? I’m having a sense of deja vu, myself. TREY I’m never deriviative. I merely take inspiration. MIKE Shut up. Silence. TREY If your life were a play, who would you like to write it? MIKE Dunno. You? TREY The guy who’s writing it now. MIKE It’s kinda silly, though. He must be a fan of the whimsicality that is exhibited by the seaweed within the slime? TREY The seaweeed within the smile? I don’t get that one. MIKE Split open and melt.

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13.

TREY I’m sick of this repetition! I’m sick of you always being angry! It shows that whoever’s writing the lines that we have to follow in our lives is really unimaginative! I’m sick of all of this pent up emotion that we have to withhold on life’s stage! I’ll be making my exit stage left now, and I hope I can write you out from my script! Leaves. Silence. Mike comes out of his chair and stands centre stage. The stage dimmens as a spotlight shines onto him, projecting his shadow onto the back wall. MIKE (The following is to said in a melodramatic, almost Shakespearean tone.) I think I just came to a realisation. That we, as human beings, are mere players. All the world’s a stage, and we never get the chance for a rehearsal. We don’t even get to learn our lines before we get thrust into the gaze of the spotlight arc. Thrown like a hyena into a den of bees. And when we are on stage, we have a choice. We either fall into a bed with our fellow thespian or we end up covered in paint, standing over their prone bodies with a dull blade designed for serial killers who tear their victims apart in our hands. But is the knife what we really need in order to destroy our threats? Or is a few well placed words the only thing we need to send our companions in front of these blackest eyes into a fit of depravity and emotional distress? TREY Well done. Trey walks on stage, applauding like a director. The lights return to normal - as if the pseudo theatre had never occurred. MIKE I’m sorry? TREY You actually showed an emotion other than angst there for a moment. It was an interesting turn of events. MIKE Well, yes. I’m busy working on this little masterpiece of mine.

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14.

TREY Really? I thought I was the one working on that. MIKE Wait a minute. (Contemplates.) We’re not sitting in the seats. That’s why I’m not being totally aggressive towards you. Trey Well, how about you go and sit in the seat, and I won’t. Maybe we both need to be in them for the aggression to come to the surface. Mike leaves Trey at centre stage and goes to sit in the stage right chair. MIKE No, I feel a certain sense of serenity. TREY You’re sitting in my chair, that’s probably why. MIKE Did we not swap chairs? TREY Oh, yes, you’re right. Maybe you have to swap the chairs around? MIKE Alright. Mike gets out of his chair and swaps the two chairs around, playing his chair in the middle of the stage, then sliding Trey’s chair around it, and then sliding his chair left in order to return the chairs to their original position. MIKE I still feel kinda calm though. TREY I thought furniture movers were one of the most aggressive of all employment groups. MIKE Nah, I actually think it’d be pretty calming. Going at your own pace in life. Trey sits down in his chair. Instantly Mike clenches his fist.

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15.

TREY (Ignoring Mike’s presence. As this "soliliquy" goes on, Mike gradually gets more aggressive while still containing himself in his chair.) Well, having you calm is certainly a change. Saves me from having to carry a bayonet with me, like some mudstained soldier in the bloodsoaked grounds of the Pacific. Not that I’d be carrying one, anyway. Bayonets are hard to float with, and it’s either float, walk or drown, the other two not being viable options. But aren’t we all soldiers in some seemingly insurmountable situation where we must fend off 300 rabid mice-like men in a maze? I mean, everyone knows quibble grows to spack, then to flangle and to crabble. And the uselessness of language goes on, we don’t realise how to truly communicate is through emotion rather than grammatical perfection. But can we be old men in a country of infantile leaders? (Rising from the chair. At this point Mike is tearing at the chair, holding back his aggression but clearly letting it show. Trey is oblivious to this.) If we are really men held back by icy caverns and meaningless words, then what are meaningless words but words devoid of any meaning? I mean, conversation and communication is useless without meaning, is it not? Meaningless words really just hold us back from further discovery. Then again, if words only had meaning they would eventually be devoid of meaning, as the meaning would be diluted by the constant repetition of meaning. You get what I’m meaning to say? MIKE I hope you die. TREY One day. Whenever I need money I’ll off myself. MIKE Suddenly calmer. Oh, come on, don’t do that. If you do that I’ll be left here to decay. TREY Isn’t that what life is like? A gradual decay of the human spirit. MIKE I suppose. Silence.

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16.

MIKE That was too long. TREY What? MIKE The silence was too long. You realistically have to have a shorter pause. Didn’t you learn that from Alchard? TREY Whatever, we’ll do it later. Did I show you that letter I got? MIKE Which letter? TREY The one I got from that school I went to for two weeks before the people started freaking out and the fish started stabbing me. MIKE Right, I remember that. TREY Turns out they’re going to give me a chance to go and write. MIKE Gonna take it? TREY Maybe, the fish might stab. MIKE Stab? TREY Yeah, they look nasty and have purple ideas. MIKE So this letter. TREY Right, I’m considering taking it. MIKE And breaking the mould that your idol set for you?

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17.

TREY What? Who? MIKE The whole not moving, never advancing thing. It’s getting old. There’s never any advancement, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful. How about a change in society, a twist in life’s plot? TREY That’s not original. Silence. TREY So I was thinking. MIKE Don’t hurt yourself. TREY What do you mean? MIKE You could pass out. TREY Highly unlikely. MIKE Knowing you, though? TREY You implying something? MIKE That you’re an idiot? TREY Was thinking the same. MIKE I said no thinking. TREY You dare stifle creativity? MIKE I reduce injury. TREY Doing a public service?

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18.

MIKE If it stops you. TREY And if it doesn’t? MIKE Your life is hell. TREY And if it isn’t? MIKE You’ll never escape. TREY So I was thinking. MIKE (Giving up. ) Fine, you were thinking. TREY About that letter? MIKE Which? TREY Now you’re the idiot. MIKE Don’t understand sarcasm? TREY I overdosed. MIKE What? TREY On sarcasm. I overdosed. MIKE Wish it were lethal. TREY Then you’d rot. MIKE I already do.

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19.

TREY Moreso. MIKE Impossible. TREY Haven’t overdosed yet? MIKE I wish. TREY Then you’d be comatose. MIKE Already am. TREY So I was thinking. MIKE Before the lobotomy? TREY That would explain... MIKE The headache? TREY The bill. MIKE Which one? TREY The absurdly large one. MIKE From? TREY The doctor? MIKE I did not...um... TREY Yes?

(CONTINUED)

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MIKE (Quickly.) Buy that many pills? TREY So? MIKE Miss me? TREY Yeah, your corpse. MIKE Getting up. Getting water. TREY Is a horrible listener. MIKE Can you blame me? TREY Why would I? MIKE Your inane ramblings?

20.